


Little Things Slip Away

by shaykreth



Category: Dragon Age (Video Games), Dragon Age - All Media Types, Dragon Age: Inquisition
Genre: Drug Use, Drug Withdrawal, F/M, Falling In Love, Feels, Love, Lyrium, Lyrium Addiction, Lyrium Addicts Anonymous, POV First Person
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-02-06
Updated: 2015-02-06
Packaged: 2018-03-10 19:34:32
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,389
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3301046
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/shaykreth/pseuds/shaykreth
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Cullen is ready to be rid of lyrium, and all the other trappings of his life as a templar. But is now the time to do it? How do you get rid of something that you need to be normal?</p>
            </blockquote>





	Little Things Slip Away

The requisition hall is quiet, as is common this late at night. I close the door behind me as I pass through. “Cassandra?” I ask, stepping into the wide space between the tables and chairs that make up the common area.

“Here, Commander.” The reply comes from the second landing, where I expect it; I am already moving up the stairs. Cassandra is standing behind the table that serves as her desk and base of operations, books sitting in a neat stack next to an equally neat pyramid of scrolls and letters.

I smile, shaking my head at her desk; what I wouldn’t give for my desk to look that neat. Since the day we arrived in Skyhold, it has been nothing but a mess. I suppose that’s expected when leading a force as patchwork as the Inquisition’s. I don’t understand.

“I hope you are not here for organizational tips,” Cassandra says, raising an eyebrow. _‘Uncanny. Clearly Seekers are gifted with telepathy. Or we’ve been spending too much time together.’_

I wave a hand at her, shaking my head. “No, though I could use them. I … come for your opinion.”

“Ah.” She pauses, looking down to move some papers to the top of a stack before looking back up at me. “Is this about the meeting this afternoon?”

I wince; Cassandra is not one to hold back. “Yes. I … apologize. I did not sleep well, and fear the exhaustion is getting the better of me. Even before … I was unable to concentrate, and did not give my full attention to the tasks at hand.”

Cassandra shakes her head slightly, face carefully impassive. “Clearly you are overworked, Commander. I, nor any of the rest of us, expect you to always be on call. Especially considering-”

I interrupt her before she can put her pity to voice. “I formally request the search begin for a replacement. For myself.” The words are hard to say, but I must speak them before Cassandra finds another way to write off my behavior. “I have already begun a list of my best officers who would serve us well.”

She is quiet, and I watch the expression on her face soften. “Cullen, that is not necessary.”

Her compassion is infuriating. “The _only_ thing I could think of the entire meeting was Kirkwall! I cannot talk about the dead without being haunted by the _children left burning_ in the streets of that Maker-forsaken city!” I’m not yelling, but I wish to. My voice is shaking, as are my hands. I press them to the table top, leaning against them to still the trembling. “How can I be expected to make these decisions, to lead our troops when I cannot even get through a meeting? You _know_ how hard Haven was-”

“And yet here you are-”

“Barely!” I push away from her table, pacing. “I cannot focus, my own body betrays me, and you are expecting me to _lead_?” I gesture vaguely towards the barracks. “It is not myself I risk in this. You know that.”

She is quiet, and I run a hand through my hair. It’s a low blow, I know it before I say it, but… “If you will not assist with the search, then I must go back on the lyrium.”

She folds her hands across her chest, and her expression hardens. “You are so close.”

“What else would you have me do?” Even I can hear how hopeless I sound.

“Lead them, Commander. Rest, and lead them.”

“I should be taking it.”

Cassandra shakes her head, voice brittle. “You asked for my opinion, and I’ve given it. Why would you expect it to change?” 

I throw my hands up in frustration. “I expect you to keep your word. It’s relentless. I can’t-”

“You give yourself too little credit,” she says, eyes on me and still such _compassion_ in her voice - it is maddening. 

“If I’m unable to fulfill what vows I kept, then nothing good has come of this. Would you rather save face than admit-”

The door on the ground floor opens, and we both immediately look down, conversation halting awkwardly.

Diana Lavellan, the Inquisitor, is standing in the doorway, her fine elven features holding a question as she glances up at Cassandra - ‘ _not at myself, surely’_ \- and I find myself quite unable to talk anymore. My chest tightens, knowing that this… this is not something I want her to see. Her knowing is punishment enough. ‘ _She is supposed to still be in Crestwood_ …’

I glance back at Cassandra before turning away from her, knowing the conversation is over for now. I move quickly, down the stairs and toward the door with a “forgive me” as I brush past the Inquisitor. She carefully moves around me, like she knows I am an unwell and broken man, her eyes on me and I cannot possibly meet them.

I close the door firmly behind me, leaning against it as I hear muffled voices in conversation start up nearly immediately. 

I know Cassandra is telling her. About my wandering mind during this afternoon’s advisor meeting. About the trembling in my hands as I moved pieces around the map table. Cassandra knows the worst of it, she is fully aware of what madness lyrium brings to a templar’s mind. Yet I fully expect her to be convincing Diana now of my health, my wellness.

_‘I should be taking it.’_

I move slowly through the yard and up to the ramparts. I can feel the pain, a cramp far from the worst I’ve felt in the last month. I stop at the top of the stairs, leaning against the wall for a chance to catch my breath. The air is so cold up here, and it helps clear my thoughts.

Thinking about Diana… I have told her, out of courtesy, of my decision to stop taking lyrium. Of my want to free myself from that world. And for so long it has been no more than headaches, some small dizziness, nothing I could not handle. Yet in the months since Haven and closing the Breach, I have found myself increasingly unable to sleep. Thoughts of Ferelden, of Kirkwall, come unbidden to the forefront of my mind. The cramps in my legs and back have worsened. I can feel my hands trembling, even now, standing here.

One breath, then another. _‘Take inventory...’_ I tell myself, working through each ache, each twitch in my back as I lean against cold stone. I catalog the hurt in my chest that has nothing to do with the lyrium withdrawal and everything to do with _her_. With Diana.

She is beautiful. An amazing woman by all accounts, made all the more powerful by her heritage and life as a Dalish elf. She is strongand skeptical in a way I wish I had been in my younger years.

And how do I serve her? By refusing myself the one thing that makes me _strong_ , that makes me _whole_.

I begin moving back towards my office as I hear a guard patrolling on the ramparts; my thoughts continue to wander. 

I have no desire to take lyrium any longer. I know that. I have seen what it does to a man; drives him to madness, despair, to forgetting who he even is. The little things slip away first, then soon the very pieces of who he is. Templars don’t age; they die, usually unsure of their own names at the hands of the Seekers. Or, more likely, by other Templars who will not allow their commanders, brothers, and sisters to destroy themselves.

I _will_ be clean of it. I have vowed that much to myself.

I walk into my office, closing the door and climbing up the ladder to my bed. The space is cold, what with half the ceiling missing, but I find comfort in the chill. It keeps me alert. I undress, wrapping blankets around myself and stretching my sore muscles out on the bed.

I _will_ be clean of it. But is it fair to put myself through this in the middle of such upheaval? Is it fair to the Inquisition, to my troops? Is it fair to _her_? 

I fall into a fitful sleep, plagued by nightmares of burning corpses begging for freedom and a savior who will never come.

**Author's Note:**

> Hey guys! I hope you enjoyed the first chapter here. Unlike some other fics I've done this one actually has, like, a full plan and everything!
> 
> This was a request from my beta reader (who is working on the second chapter), who also happens to be my lovely girlfriend and who also struggles with a medication problem for mental illness. She wanted a story that more accurately reflecting the internal struggle that a person goes through, and I realized that as a former alcohol & drug counselor, I may be better equipped than most to actually write about this. 
> 
> The Inquisitor in this story, Diana Lavellan, is also my girlfriend's. Because she loves her some Cullen.


End file.
